What We Do > Our Sectors and Practices

Governance

Governance is critical to all institutions including public, private and not-for-profit - for ensuring legitimacy and sustainable growth. It is also critical for men and women, citizens and communities, the poor and marginalised in particular - to ensure their voice is heard and decision-makers are held accountable. Good governance strengthens accountability, improves government performance and organisational capacity. We are conversant in current governance thinking. We recognise that governance processes are gendered and that the concerns of women and girls and socially excluded groups are often marginalised or ignored. We mainstream gender equality and social inclusion into all areas of our work.

We work with national, regional and local governments in the areas of political participation, public administration, decentralisation and local government reforms, human rights, accountability, transparency and anti-corruption to identify and foster engagement between citizens and their government, recognising that both the supply and demand for good governance is necessary to initiate change. In doing so, we strive to improve public governance through our specialised knowledge in organisational and individual capacity building, and provide comprehensive solutions to make change possible, plausible and successful. We have been applying problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approaches to our design, implementation and evaluation work across a range of governance programmes. We take a rights based approach; and are making use of new digital technology in our governance work in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

IPE Global has been contracted to evaluate Kenya Election Violence Prevention and Response Program (KEVP) Program. The main objectives of the KEVP Program is to identify and map relationships between key influential actors in identified at-risk areas, capable of mobilizing people toward and away from violence, and whose intended outcome would be to ensure that competing parties more open to working together. The second objective is to develop or expand upon existing structures that facilitate coordination and information sharing related to electoral security planning and response between identified local influencers, including community leaders, local administrators, and the security sector, whose expected and desirable outcome is to ensure that communities’ election violence prevention and response capacities are mobilized. The third objective is to ensure electoral security structures develop plans and processes that enhance prevention and responses to early indicators of violence, an intended outcome being, target communities are more resilient to election violence.

Supporting Partnerships for Accountability and Civic Engagement (SPACE) is a new programme supported by DFID to improve engagement between government and civil society in Myanmar. The funding will support civil society and local authorities to make public institutions more responsive to people’s service delivery and economic needs. Our scope of work is to act as “Evidence and Learning” partner aiming to ensure high quality, independent assessment and analysis of what works in terms of promoting improved civic engagement in Burma, and the impacts this brings in terms of deepening peace and democracy and improving access to services and economic opportunities. Our project has been designed to be responsive to needs and opportunities as they arise, and will support strategic decision making and improved sharing and capacity to use evidence across a broad set of actors to ensure better use of data in policy making and implementation.

The overall objective of the evaluation is to assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of the programme, including the extent to which cross cutting issues (human rights, gender, SDGs) have been mainstreamed. The evaluation will also assess the mechanisms put in place to enhance coordination and harmonization between UNDP, Implementing Partners, and state and non-state actors in peacebuilding and community security initiatives.

The Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF) was established to build the capacity of poor people (men and women) to understand and demand their rights and improve their economic and social well-being through service delivery in difficult conditions. Projects were implemented by UK-based Civil Society Organisations, in partnership with approximately 300 formal and informal organisations in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East. We became the CSCF’s Fund Manager in 2010, after several years of providing technical assistance, advisory services and monitoring and evaluation for the fund. As Fund Manager we supported 170 projects with a total value of more than £51 million.

Aimed at strengthening institutional capacity for establishing a federal system of development planning and restructuring the NPC, ADB supported the Government of Nepal's decentralisation initiatives, including fiscal decentralisation, by consolidating the planning and implementation capacity of central and local institutions, improving devolved service delivery at grassroots level and pursuing institutional strengthening and capacity building.

IPE Global supported the development of a new planning framework under a federal system of governance including detailed organisational structure at the central level including a broad structure at the state and local levels; formulation of road map for a smooth transition to the new planning process which was more decentralised, inclusive and result-oriented.

The ADB-funded LGFGR aimed to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of delivery of basic public services by strengthening the policy, legal, and regulatory framework for decentralisation, as well as developing capacities at the local government level in Indonesia.

IPE Global supported the Government of Indonesia in ensuring more efficient, effective and equitable spending by regional governments in Indonesia. The support focused at ensuring continued implementation of the government's medium and long term fiscal decentralisation agenda; improving policy and legal framework for rationalising regional governments to increase fiscal efficiency; enhancing equalisation, predictability and transparency in release of fiscal transfers and shared revenues; reducing dependency on fiscal transfers by developing more buoyant sources of local revenue for local governments; developing improved data systems for monitoring sub-national debt; development of sub-national bond market in Indonesia; developing human and systems capacity; and strengthening public financial management (PFM) and accountability functions at the local government level through implementation of the newly reformed PFM regulatory regime in regional governments.

Implemented by UNDP through a multi-donor (EU, DFID, USAID) basket fund, Strengthening the Electoral Process in Kenya (SEPK) project is designed to consolidate and build on the gains made from the constitutional transition process and the 2013 elections to strengthen and develop credible and sustainable election institutions, systems and processes. SEPK is premised on both the continuation and consolidation of results, especially in the areas of legal and institutional reforms, inclusive participation in elections and politics – especially for women, youth and people with disabilities, election security and electoral justice.

With a view to establish benchmarks for measuring the progress of SEPK and to assess the election commission’s readiness, credibility and capacity to deliver free and fair 2017 General Elections, UNDP entrusted IPE Global to undertake a baseline survey of electoral reforms in Kenya. As part of the project, we assessed the institutional strength of key institutions of democracy to promote credible, transparent and peaceful elections in Kenya. This included evidence of concrete undertakings by key institutions to support effective executions of their mandates and responsibilities.

DFID has been working to tackle corruption for many years by supporting partner countries to build better governance to deal with corruption issues within their borders and supporting international action on standard setting and oversight mechanisms, and more effective co-ordination. With this in view and to step-up its support to fighting corruption even further, DFID envisaged designing an International Anti-Corruption (I-AC) programme, focusing on strengthening the international architecture and response on anti-corruption, including working with new digital technologies to strengthen civil society in DFID partner countries.

We supported DFID in design it’s I-AC programme. This included, design of I-AC programme document (business case), development of a monitoring & evaluation framework and log frame, and appraisal of options for management of this complex, multi-component and strategic programme. Our approach included a combination of desk-based work, an inception workshop with all DFID stakeholders, meetings with different departments of Government of United Kingdom (U.K.) and existing programme partners, and discussions with other key stakeholders working in international anti-corruption.

UN Joint Programme on Local Governance (JPLG) aims to promote improvements in local governance quality that can contribute to peace consolidation, development and equitable service delivery in Somalia. Phase– I (2008-2012) and II (2013-2017) of JPLG was implemented by five UN agencies with focus on strengthening local government in Somalia.

To build on successes achieved during phase I and II, UN JPLG and UNICEF in Somalia entrusted IPE Global to design phase III of JPLG covering from the year 2018 to 2022. We reviewed various thematic support provided by JPLG including policy, public finance management, service delivery, voice and accountability, capacity building, gender equality and results measurement. Based on results of review, we designed a new and improved programme centered around government priorities, citizen strategies (men, women and excluded groups), ongoing programmatic oversight and consolidation of programme reports, incorporating value for money principles.

IPE Global is providing Technical Assistance to Government of Bihar (GoB) to (a) improve investment climate for private sector growth (b) boost revenue collection, and strengthen public financial management to make development more effective and (c) revamp technical education in the state create jobs, particularly for women, SCs and minorities.
Our technical assistance is helping GoB to design and implement reforms to trigger private investment; strengthen the MSME sector; and boost employment opportunities in the state. Further, we are working to support different departments of Bihar Government to improve resource utilisation, targeting, monitoring, and evidence based planning for the development of women, SCs and Minorities in the state.

The five-year Institutions for Inclusive Development (I4ID) programme works to strengthen
Democratic institutions and governance in Tanzania so they are more inclusive and accountable, and economic growth provides more benefits for poor people.
IPE Triple Line is working in a consortium to deliver the design, mid-term review and final evaluation of the programme. I4ID’s fluid and inherently political character presents an opportunity for the evaluation to take an innovative approach – exploring the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of adaptive programming, rather than a traditional performance-based evaluation. The evaluation maintains a dual focus on programme-specific, as well as more generalised learning and uptake for the emerging field of adaptive programming globally. It presents an exciting opportunity to better understand how political transformation works in an environment where pathways to change are uncertain.

The project aims to design and plan for the transition to, a second five year phase of the DGF (DGF II) commencing on January 2018. The objective of the assignment is to provide an analysis of the democratic governance trends in Uganda and an analysis of the social and political prospects for change; articulate the impact and outcome indicators; identification of programmatic scope, etc. The formulation of DGF II will be designed with the aim of ‘consolidating and refocusing’ DGF interventions to allow for a stronger and more coherent strategic push for democratic governance change in an increasingly more challenging context and allowing for new strategic partnerships.

OMEGA intends to improve Government of Odisha's (GoO's) functioning on its schemes and programmes; help in promotion and facilitation of investments in the state, and build capacity for revenue mobilisation and expenditure management. IPE Global has been providing design, implementation & program management support to OMEGA since the year 2010 through to 2017. We are assisting Government of Odisha (GoO) and its various departments namely Departments of Finance (DoF); Planning and Coordination (DoPC); Industries (Dol); Panchayati Raj (DoPR); and Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare (DoFS&CW) to enhance private sector investments in industries and infrastructure with environmental and social safeguards; enhance capacity to mobilise revenue and manage expenditure; and improve implementation and delivery of selected poverty alleviation programmes that enhance access to employment and food, and build climate resilience. We are supporting analysis of key constraints, and improving government systems and capacities so that all available resources can be used most effectively.

DFID’s Civil and Political Rights Tracking project aims at nationwide tracking of civil and political rights protection in Tanzania over a three-year period in the build up to, during and after, the 2015 elections. IPE Triple Line is leading a consortium to deliver this project, with teams based in London and Dar-es Salaam. The project works in collaboration with the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) and Zanzibar Legal Service Centre (ZLSC) and their network to contribute towards improved public discourse on the protection of civil and political rights in Tanzania. It does this through improved tracking of civil and political rights and increased advocacy and public outreach on these issues.
The project provides ongoing capacity building in human rights, governance, coalition building, communications and advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, and analysis and reporting. Our success is largely built on an approach to partnership which has assured the project is integrated and owned by the two civil society organisations. Key achievements to date include development of a bottom-up civil and political rights Perceptions Index, development of thematic briefs, improved quality of reporting on civil and political rights, including trend analysis in the Tanzania Annual Human Rights Report, and design of a campaign on freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.